We need to remember that copying is not only for normal people like you and me but also for world renowned demi-gods such as Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs did not invent the tablet as we know today as the iPAD. Microsoft was one of the first pioneers in creating a tablet and they failed miserably. Steve Jobs did not invent the device to digitally store music such as the iPod. Others did before but Jobs perfected the concept, he made it appealing, he had the courage and diligence to price it at a premium and the rest is history.

There are countless examples of products that seemingly were invented by one person only to recognize that the idea was not originally theirs. Does that qualify as copying?

Peter Cochrane, a speaker on innovation and future trends usually starts his speeches by saying: ‘If I replicate what you have and I launch it on the market – that’s copying. If I have a team doing the same thing, that’s called research’.

From personal experience having lived in Asia for 4 years I have come back with a more relaxed view on copying. It was quite common for a businessman in Bangkok, Thailand with a retail location to open an ‘innovative coffee shop’ only to find 4 more ‘innovative’ coffee shops open on the same street and vicinity 4 weeks later. Who wins? The customer of course! Over time 3 out of 4 of these copycats would close down leaving the last 2 to fight till the bitter end. Survival of the fittest as Darwin would call it.

China is renowned for being open to foreign investment. After all, when a large mobile network equipment vendor like Alcatel decided to invest in China in the late 90’s, they did so for all the right reasons: Investment subsidies, grants or special taxes, access to low cost labour, large market of 1,2 billion people and a foot in Asia. This made good business sense. However as new competitors popped up like Huawei or ZTE with seemingly the same technology Alcatel had to wonder: How did they come up with the same technology so fast?

The other choice for Alcatel? You mean…NOT investing back then in China?

Can you imagine going back to HQ in Paris and saying ‘you know what? We should not invest in China…it’s too risky and they may copy our Intellectual Property (IP); in fact we should forget about China altogether’ as their competitors proceeded to throw themselves into China. I don’t think so!

There are a lot of imitators in the digital marketplace too. Ones that come to mind are Alexander, Oliver and Marc Samwer, three brothers in Germany who have built copies of AirBnB, eBay and Groupon across various European countries. Innovation for them is shall I say, effective and they have made some good money in the process. Their clone ‘factory’ is called Rocket which incubates dozens of internet start-ups – many of which take their business plans from Silicon Valley. They have learned to scale rapidly, and customize online companies to European tastes and cultures – which explains their success.

I have come to realize that any business idea is derived from something that preceded it. The level of copying in any new product or service is simply a matter of degree. Unless you specifically infringe a patent, design, trademark or copyright, or are very obviously passing off your goods as if they were a competitor’s product, you can profitably use that idea.

Bill Gates once said that ‘Intellectual Property has the shelf life of a banana’. Given what the Jobs and the Gates of this world have done what should we do? What is morally acceptable? Do we copy or do we innovate?

Let me give you a few suggestions to keep you focused on innovation instead of worrying about copycats:

1) If you have invested a lot in your technology then get your legal department to prepare the patent applications for you. Keep in mind however that often, the imitator’s technology can be more refined and entirely legal.

2) Don’t get hung up or too comfortable on your product or service ‘supremacy’. If you feel that you have an important competitive differentiator with your improved ‘taste/flavor/model’, make sure your product development team is preparing the next best thing. Your competitor is watching and most probably will copy.

3) Be proactive by running informal sessions with customers and get them to brainstorm with you. This is where needs are identified: At the source. Imitators may have come out with the product but as Jobs showed us, did it really meet the need?

4) Allow time off for technical people to putter on pet projects, this is called “tinkering time’. Gmail and Google News were introduced because of tinkering time. 3M also provides up to 20% of work time to work on pet projects.

5) Ask customers about problems with products and set up an idea workshop. Challenge customers to improve products. This is another way of identifying insights and “A-Hah’ moments.

Oded Shenkar, is a professor at the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University, and author of Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Competitive Edge. He claims that just copying a market leader in every respect isn’t clever: instead, do what they do only better, cheaper and with a different spin. And get a move on – the originator is unlikely to simply sit back and watch you steal their market.

The nice thing about your competitor advertising their new product, be it yogurt, laptops or insurance is that you ultimately gain from this added awareness in the market.

Finally, before you start calling your competitor ‘Copycat …Copycat’ remember:

At the end of the day like our friend Steve did magnificently, it’s execution that is important, not the idea.

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Common integrated campaign pitfalls.
Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other
Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.
Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget
To close off this topic and as a continuation of my last post on the topic of campaign integration here’s pitfall number 4.

Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget
Another pitfall is when the Chief Marketing Officer decides to get involved, rolls up his/her sleeves with the team and assists them in launching his first campaign with the team then retreats to his/her management meetings leaving his deputy in full control of the subsequent campaigns.
Till then he or she sets the direction and tone of the Marketing plan (example)
“I want us to be positioned as the company whose real estate project owns the concept of European living standards such as providing large green space, offices, large employer complexes, schools, retail, professionals, fitness centers, public transport.”
He/She made sure the message was communicated efficiently by signing off on all ads, and held the Marketing department responsible for the success of their campaigns (“If we don’t generate revenues that are at least twice what this new Marketing program costs, I want it stopped”).
The campaign was a huge success, improving sales and raising the company’s presence to the point where it could demonstrate a correlation between sales and the advertising campaign.
Then he/she takes his eye ‘off the ball’, starts trusting the agency and then makes the decision that he/she would change from being an inspiration to becoming more involved in day-to-day management. He begins focusing exclusively on the dynamics of reporting systems and internal controls. Although he was a sale-and-Marketing pro who had built the Marketing department from the ground up, he/she now feels that time should be spent building an internal organization.
Soon enough Marketing was delegated to inexperienced staff that could go through the motions of creating Facebook pages, web-site banners, and the like, but who were lost without the leadership it takes to turn these elements into a powerful sales-building machine. No wonder revenues and earnings slowed down.
The team needs inspiration all the time. This means getting involved in all aspects if the Marketing leader wishes to see results while at the same time maintain the consistency of the message.
He/she is supposed to be diligent enough to have created a succession plan but rushing into management duties too fast is not going to help anyone especially when it comes to generating Top Line revenues with Marketing.

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On the topic of integration, budgets and measuring results I have found that the following pitfalls are common when we think that the campaign is integrated.

Common integrated campaign pitfalls.
Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other

Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.
Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget

As a continuation of my last post on the topic of campaign integration here’s pitfall number 3

Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Marketing agencies that are ineffective i.e. that struggle to turn advertising, public relations, direct mail, and other initiatives into sales probably will never admit to being ineffective, otherwise they are risking their credibility as ‘creatives’. Think about it. Awards are given out based on an agency’s ‘creative’ talent. Other awards – ‘Effies’ are awards that have proven that a particular campaign had a positive effect in revenues.
Rather agencies like to talk in terms of “image or awareness Marketing”. They will insist that although you can’t measure the performance of what they do, you should rest assured that image is improving, the strategy is catering to your target audience, reach is attained, the awareness of the brand is improving because you selected them
Horse feathers! If you hear such baloney from an agency pitching for your business, instruct them to go pitch for your competitor.
It is possible to design Marketing so that the initiatives and tools you create can generate customer revenues.
What you are looking for in a good agency or in a candidate to run your Marketing department-is that they understand the importance of integrating all of your Marketing initiatives.
It’s normal for an agency to spend a lot of time on the creative, either to seize the newly found customer insight and to become unique in the way it intends to address that market or audience or its innovative way to communicate the message. After all, the client’s brief did say ‘we have to be different’.
By the time they have done the creative there is little time for execution or better still integration. So they go based on what they remember-what they did in the past, as a benchmark. In most cases, the benchmark or what they did in the past carries no tangible metric or measure that is, ‘when we used TV+ Social media we saw a sales report from the client that sales increased by 20%.’

Rather, they use what they remember, and this seems to be a comfortable fit for what they consider as an integrated campaign. As a result the integration part gets 10% attention of the planning time. No wonder since you too were swayed by the really cool creative that you may have completely forgotten to ask the obvious…how is this integrated?
It’s happened to me on many occasions. I too, got caught up in the ‘sizzle’ of the creative and forgot to ask about integration. Don’t get caught like I did!

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Common integrated campaign pitfalls.
Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other
Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.
Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget

Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other
TV commercials are not always a success story, i.e. poor creative or a TV ad which was not sales actionable. At times if we are not careful, we can make the same mistake or worse, the TVC does not support other media used (ex. Radio and online). The messages have to be consistent and the choice of media needs to build a 1-2 punch and they must complement each other.
Now we can’t cover every potential combination of one medium plus another but I feel compelled to remind you that when an agency proposes 2, 3 or 4 types of media it begs the obvious question of:
Why combine these?
What proof do we have that the combination of these 4 media will give us maximum impact?

Hearing things such as:
‘In our opinion we felt that these were a good combination’ or
‘This combination always worked well for us in the past’ or
‘We tested this on another client and the results were great’.
These are not justifiable reasons and they are a sure sign that this combination was made in haste or random.

If you are still not convinced, ask the agency or the team making the proposal:
‘The TVC will complement online how?’ or
‘Prove to me that some customers will see the same message in 2-3 different media and therefore creates a call to action?’
‘Explain to me the link between Outdoor and the web banners?’
Here is an example of how various media work together as parts of a sum and feed into each other.
Let’s use a campaign example of a local real estate developer called PrimeProperties.com
In addition to print advertising, the agency convinced the company to place banner ads on real estate websites. Additionally, they prompted the company to test TV and radio advertising designed to serve as a lead generator for all segments (residential, commercial) as well as office space prospects, notaries, real-estate agents, bankers, and inspectors.
This broadcast approach served as a “Go-to-the-Web” driver (“Go to PrimeProperties.com now and receive…”) and helped to build a database of leads that could be pursued through telemarketing and mailings.
Instead of sending the prospects a single piece of communication, which is rarely enough to initiate relationships, the agency suggested a multifaceted campaign that called for prospects to receive a personalized introduction letter offering a “Prime customer” gift, a follow-up postcard focused on the property’s key benefits, a direct-response brochure and Go-to-Web card, and a telemarketing call.
Adding any combination of media is easy; getting them to work ‘in synch’ (and therefore generate revenues) is not.
There is still room for taking risks here and testing combinations but there has to be a rationale; assumptions need to be noted and written down as to why you are combining this medium to another at the outset and the corresponding objectives as to why you combined them in such a manner.
By documenting the rationale (memo, assumption or stated objective) you can always go back and validate if the combination of media was successful – this is part of the monitoring function.
If on the other hand the combination was haphazard, not documented and no post mortem was done, you are simply wasting valuable Marketing funds since you have no way or tool to consider the cause/effect of your media combination.

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An integrated campaign as a reminder means that the campaign does not use any one single component of marketing-be it advertising, public relations, sales promotion, or social media but rather a combination of these to make sure that most audiences will be addressed via one media or another.

Putting all your money in one medium is likely to falter precisely because it is not supported by a full complement of marketing initiatives that must reinforce one another, producing exponential results such as 1+1=3.

One may ask, “Isn’t advertising in one medium only better than doing nothing at all?” That’s question misses the point. A wiser approach is to ask what can be done to support the investment in advertising so that you achieve the objectives you established at the outset.

What is preferred logically and in an efficient manner is an integrated set of marketing tools and initiatives carefully planned within the framework of a multifaceted marketing campaign.
To do that, you must create a media plan designed to make sure that all of your marketing tactics work together.
Lastly, getting marketing to generate Top Line revenues implies marketing initiatives that produce a significant return on the marketing dollars spent.
In order to give you some direction on ensuring that the campaign is (in fact) integrated, watch out for the following four pitfalls:

Common integrated campaign pitfalls.
Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other
Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.
Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget

For the purpose of brevity for today’s post let’s explore the second one:

Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.

We’ll spend more time on metrics, analytics and ROI later but a common mistake is to set a budget first, then spend later on a variety of media.

The justification to coming up with a budget first could be:
a) Slow sales

b) Competitors are not advertising as much or,

c) The state of the economy.

In fact even if sales are slow during an economic downturn, they never stop altogether. And if everyone else is cutting back on spending during a recession, this is the worst time to cut back on marketing as is frequently the case. Studies show that businesses that continue marketing through a recession (http://www.renaud-investments.ro/five-steps-on-how-to-survive-in-a-recession-3) are the ones that come out ahead when the economy begins to turn (ex. Orange in Romania).

This could be an opportunity for you to gain market share by being aggressive.
But at the same time coming up with a budget figure out of the blue or out of thin air because sales are down, orders have declined and inventories are mounting is not rational thinking either.

You must consider the following instead:
1) Who’s the target of the marketing campaign?

2) Do these initiatives follow the marketing plan?

3) What goals will this campaign seek to achieve?

4) How these funds will to help sluggish sales?

5) The messages used to position your product as The customer solution

6) How the campaign will be measured?

7) How leads will be captured?

8) How are you going to monitor the results?

Committing to X million euros to a marketing budget in the blind implies that you will be spending big money without any clear plan for how it will generate additional revenues for the business.
This is certainly not the way to generate Top Line revenues with Marketing!

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Marketers need to understand sales effectiveness. This seems terribly simple but ultimately the most direct effect of sales (as a result of marketing) is that sales generates revenues.
Plus as a Marketer how you can’t expect to drive top line revenues from market initiatives unless you have a thorough understanding of your company’s sales department and how effective they are.

Fact:

There is a strong link between sales and marketing and dynamic marketing leaders are always seeking feedback from the sales team when it comes to reading the market, understanding competition and fine tuning products and services.
In fact you should always welcome it.

Ask yourself when was the last time a sales peer gave you feedback on prices, the promotion or the new products launched last week?
If you can’t remember – that’s a problem; either:
1) As a marketer you are not getting feedback from sales since they don’t have your phone number or email or a method/channel to give to feedback,
2) You are not welcoming feedback,
3) You have not created an environment where sales can openly give feedback.

In all cases, something has to be done immediately.

Any customer centric organization has to provide an environment where sales can for example, get on the phone or email you to say ‘hey…this client is telling us that our prices are too high’ (common sales reply)…or this client has decided to leave for x/y/z reason because of the product.
Another reason could be that customers expect a higher group discount or are asking if we can modify the product/package or distribution somehow. These are all legitimate questions and market feedback and it implies that there is a dialog between marketing and sales.

As a Product Manager, I would get the distribution sales team to call me on a daily basis to complain (read, suggest) about one aspect or another about the products. This is healthy. As a Marketer, you have to welcome this kind of feedback and you have to toughen your skin since you may get a lot of criticism.

In Romania we initiated this environment of informal feedback since the sales team simply did not know that they could or should give feedback to Marketing.
We also had a product development board (formal feedback) where new products and enhancements were presented because existing products lacked a better price/package or feature.

Informal since you want to hear it ’live’ or before someone has to write an email and formally since it’s important that if you are getting similar feedback from many sales teams about the same problem, this implies that the problem must be addressed immediately or it has to be elevated to your boss or the next product development board.

Experience:
I am assuming that all good marketers have some form of sales experience. If you don’t I would try to deflect this aspect about your career as long as you can. In my opinion you need to have sold something to be effective in marketing. Sales may seem easy but it’s not. There is a lot of work to even get a customer interested in your pitch and even then, that does not guarantee that you will close. Marketers must understand this pain of trying to ‘make the sale’.

If you wish to stay in marketing and you cannot leave your marketing job tomorrow to start a new sales career, then I strongly suggest that you engage in a MLM (Multi-level marketing) or network marketing organizations like Amway, Tupperware, HerbaLife, NU Skin, and Avon in your spare time. Even if you try it and don’t like it, the fundamental part of this exercise is to understand what is required to sell. You’ll get free training and initial products to sell to your friends and family. After a while say in 2-3 months you will either love it or hate it. That’s the pain I am talking about.
Bottom line- Selling isn’t easy.

Sales discipline: Basics
The success of any organization resides in the Sales department’s ability to reach sales targets that were established in the Business plan – this is imperative.
Each Sales representative – let’s call them Account Managers (AM, for short), must go through a consistent prospecting process till a sale is made. I’ve described for illustrative purposes the most basic sales process below. I will assume for sake of example that the Account Manager is new and was not given any particular segment focus – a ‘shot gun’ approach in other words.

Day to Day Plan:
Daily Activities

0930 – 1030
Account Managers starting their day early, on time to do Telephone calls
Returning phone calls of previous day
Leads generated internally
Cold calls to prospects
Confirm presentations booked by other team members
Call on new contact developed within existing clients
Follow up on Direct mail program

Goal: Book a meeting even if it short in nature. The AM does not try to sell products/services over the phone.

1030 – 1230
Customer meetings either booked or “in the neighborhood” calls to existing clients.

1230 – 1300
Lunch

1300 – 1600
Customer meetings

1600 – 1900
Returning phone call messages on same day
Leads generated internally.
Follow up on Direct mail program.
Cold calls to prospects
Confirm presentations
Call on new contacts provided by Marketing leads or Customer Service.

This has to be done religiously – every day!

Adding to the rigor of cold calling, prospecting and meeting customers, the AM needs to initiate the following:

1) Direct mail to selected targets such as Romanian publicly traded companies, banks, manufacturing, trading firms, NGOs, insurance companies, government institutions or other relevant vertical markets.

2) Telemarketing to customers. Purpose of call is to introduce your company. Other reasons are to explain offerings, getting feedback on existing suppliers, product/service guarantees – but not on the phone. Remember the objective is to get an appointment!

3) Chamber of commerce/trade association events.

4) Accompanying the Sales Manager for customer visits, both to introduce company and prospect for more business.

5) Customer ownership focus:
Develop/add/ complement the customer profile and account review in your CRM for new contacts that you have developed.

7) Thank you letter after each call and place lead information in CRM that can be recalled for future prospecting purposes.

You get the idea.

The trick in sales is that if you repeat all these steps in a consistent manner, you will develop a small yet growing database of good customers.

It takes time.

I have sold water filters (yes…MLM), mobile phones, computer equipment, consulting contracts, sponsorships and coaching services. In my experience the AM starts to become effective and on ‘top of his/her game’ after approximately 1 ½ years of selling. It takes that amount of time to get to know your customers, learn the tricks of the trade; you avoid mistakes and become focused on customer needs and an expert at ‘closing’.

Rome was not built in a day, nor will you become an effective Account Manager overnight.

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I mean let’s face it reading about Marketing Research (MR) is about as interesting as watching paint dry! And Market Research is for well… researchers right?  Not true.

Market research is one more weapon in the Marketing leader’s arsenal that when properly used can make a big difference.

In my ongoing attempt to make Marketing fun yet useable in your day-to-day activities let’s start with a few definitions:

First, textbook definition of Marketing Research (MR);
Systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the company.
Ok, no revelations here but I like the word systematic – more on that later.

Not all MR firms are created equal. You should know that there are different types of research firms to help you:

1) Specialty-line marketing research firms: These are the ones that conduct Field interviewing services.

 
2) Syndicated-service research firms: Such as Mercury Research, TNS Gallup, Business Monitor. They prepare industry wide studies (ex. Omnibus) that any players in a particular industry can buy and get a barometer of what is happening.

 
3) Custom marketing (or bespoke) research firm: Examples like IDC Research. With these firms you can ask to find out any information you want, for example “How many pickles per week do obese teenagers consume in Cluj (silly example to make a point). On a more serious note, I was involved in a research project where we had to determine how many large telecoms operators (Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, etc) would use a fiber optic cable for data purposes if it was deployed across Russia (hint: that is a pretty long, expensive cable and a bit tough to install in some frozen parts of Russia).

 
Primary Vs. Secondary data (Marketing buzz words): That one is easy.  Primary data is when you plan to get information through a research firm; this data is paid for, confidential and remains yours. Secondary data can be found on the www and is also referred to as “Desk research” since its free available information on a particular topic (article, white papers, industry reports, etc).
Marketers collect primary data in 4 main ways:
1) Observation. Xerox used to film users to see how easy it was to find the “print” button on a copier machine. Ever notice why the “print “button is big and green now?

 
2) Focus groups (also referred as qualitative data) .This is cool and I strongly suggest that if you are NOT in Marketing that you participate as a listener behind the two way mirror. Essentially a moderator interviews 6-8 people (paid to attend and to give their opinions) to discuss their views on a products. In many case INSIGHTS  are revealed which is another  MR tool. I call these insights the A-HA! moments. The A-HA ! moment is when you hear a customer describe a situation or need from your product or service that you had not realized in the past – sort of a new way to use your product in everyday use.

 
3) Surveys, referred logically as quantitative data. Normally sample sizes are approximately 1200 people with an interviewer conducting a face to face interview or at times using a computer (CATI) or the web to interview people to get their opinions.

 
4) Behavioral data. Tesco in the UK through their card memberships and store scanning data can develop a campaign to get you back in the store and buy something based on your  past consumption behavior – that is a really cool too.
OK, so I’ve described some of the basic tools and concepts.

 
Here is where I get the attention of both Marketers and non Marketers:
There are times when Market Research cannot /will not help you:
1)    “Analysis Paralysis”. You spend too much time on getting/reading/digesting the data that you cannot make a decision. You often hear ”Well I don’t  know… after all the research told us that we should not go into this business or market “. Solution: Use the research for what it is; additional information about the market and opinions of users. Remember research does not make decisions, leaders make decisions!

2)    Poor framing of the problem. What was the purpose of research in the first place? Anybody who was read the story and fiasco of New Coke knows that the researchers “asked the wrong question” (see Exponential Marketing, Paul Garrison). It was not a matter of asking if people wanted to change the taste of Coca-Cola but rather asking people what Coke represented for them. Because they were asking the wrong questions this lead to a dramatic change in their strategy and almost killed Coke in the process.

 
My suggestion is here is that you need to really sit down and frame the problem carefully. I tell my clients (CMOs) to invest the time in preparing and getting involved in the brief. Only from there can you define a proper brief for the MR firm to get the data you need.
When you invest this time at the outset, you become crystal clear as to what you want and this makes it easier for the research company to find the answers you seek. Besides a few minutes in brief preparation time can avoid damage control in hours/days of research that comes back meaningless (and costly).

 
3)    Poor execution. OK you found the best research method, the MR firm and you have spent time preparing the brief.  Then the results come in and your  MR team tells you with a great deal of pride…”look at all the important data” as they plop the research on your desk. You have a natural interest to read it and you think to yourself ‘Hold on here…what are the conclusions?” Once again the team tells you …”Well look at the Executive summary”!

 
The next logical question you need to ask the team as a leader is SO WHAT?
The team has to understand that just getting the job done technically is only a part of the execution. They need to read/ understand/process and suggest to the Marketing leader what the company needs to do next. Now that is what I call value add and empowering the team.
Suggestion: Tell the MR team that they have to “live” and understand this new information so much that they have to defend or confirm the direction that this new data is implying.
If they cannot defend the direction then this means a) they have not been empowered to do so or b) they feel that their job as a research team has been completed. In both case this is the wrong answer.

 
I promised you earlier that I would come back to the word “systematic”. All that means is that you have 1) a method, 2) the MR resources, 3) your involvement, 4) uncovered insights or A-Ha moments, 5) a plan to execute.
Market Research seems terribly simple to a point where you may feel to put it on Auto-pilot.

However the more time you invest in it, the more you get out of it. At one point when you discover that cool A-HA! moment that can seemingly kill your competitor you will look back and say to yourself…”You know Market Research was fun after all”.
Did I convince you?

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This guy killed the product and Blackberry. He also reminded us that Nokia once a leader in the mobile handset business has “given away their business” to Apple with the Iphone.

I remember a few years back I missed out on an opportunity to meet Jorma Ollila, then CEO of Nokia. This guy was God! He was invited to all the high level, prominent world conferences as a speaker and meeting him was akin to meeting the Pope if you were in telecoms (well OK… not like meeting the Pope but close). Nokia was on top of the world in the early 2000’s where they commanded at least 60% world market share. Then a little company from Canada called RIM was building steam on the market with the Blackberry and it was hailed as the next best thing and you were missing out if ” you did not have a Blackberry “. Today the table has changed once again: I mean do you know anybody that does not have an IPhone?

Product development and a philosophy of being customer obsessed are key in the smart phone business as you can see. Apple commands now 26% of the app phone market (i.e. IPhone applications) which is the result of 75 million slaving fans and a bottomless app store.

In my MBA classes we talk about “Gaining momentum – the Larreche prescription”. Larreche maintains that momentum is something that can be created by companies and once achieved can be maintained by pursuing a creative marketing approach. Apple, Toyota, Nintendo and Skype have all entered the virtuous circle of continuous growth – “the momentum effect”. A company that “systematically place customers at the center of its thinking and thrives to attain ambitious goals will be able to harness the power of the momentum and deliver exceptional growth.”( J.-C. Larreche, 2008 the momentum effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growth).

I could not agree more.

Where are you sitting right now with product development for your firm and more specifically is the customer the main focus for what you are trying to create, build and sell?

I want to cover the importance of being competitive and aggressive about product development. In my next article I will talk about the actual phases of NPD (New Product Development) but I can’t do that until I raise (read, remind you of the) importance of:

1) Why you always have to be in the right zone of developing enough products,

2) Making sure the customer is at the focus of what you develop and,

3) Kill a product when it has reached the end of its life cycle.

I don’t care what industry you are in. Customers have become used to “new and improved” and unfortunately for you they expect it. Are customers rational when it comes to buying new products and knowing which product is best? Answer: No. Larreche also tells us that they are not always strictly rational: Their perception is their reality.

Perception is what drives them.

If your products have not had a “face lift” or change and your competition offers something better or perceived better, the customer “will walk” in other words he/she will change products.

Lifestyles have changed and are getting faster .People are more are more time constrained and want immediate results. Does your product offer this better than the competition?

As well, your competitors are probably persuading even loyal customers to come over based on better prices. NPD is another reason to help you get away from the “price trap”.

Have I got your attention now and are you motivated to do something about NPD?

Here are 10 ways to find great new product ideas:

1) Run informal sessions with customers

2) Make customer brainstorming a part of company/plant tours

3) Survey your customers

4) Allow time off for technical people to putter on pet projects

5) Undertake ‘fly on the wall’ research from customers

6) Use iterative rounds with customers

7) Set up a keyword search to scan trade publications

8) Treat trade shows as intelligence missions

9) Have employees visit supplier labs

10) Set up an idea workshop

Notice how often I mention often the word customer here?

As a benchmark Toyota employees generate 2 million ideas per year or 35 suggestions per employee (er…that is 3 idea per month!). Are you encouraging the same in your firm?

On a closing note, Bob Bowles one the best NPD gurus I know in telecoms came to help me with my former employer, essentially a company that could not compete.

We wanted to get NPD off the ground and to become a credible player in the telecoms business, but ironically we found that the team had all the right ingredients. We just needed a structure, a process and the need to ignite the obsession of being customer focused.

The rest is history since my former employer is now competing and generating new products with the same intensity as established industry players. It worked!

NPD starts by having the right mindset regardless if you are a 1 person organization or 5000 people organization. Customers want products that satisfy their needs – all the time.

Use the ideas above to optimize or kick start your NPD approach. In my next article I’ll go over NPD structure and process.

In the meantime get the Idea generating machine going!

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